How Much Does Off-Grid Solar Cost?
It depends. Several factors influence the total cost of an off-grid solar solution. Your decision depends on your current setup, lifestyle, future plans, preferences, and budget.
Most clients in Caliente fall into three categories:
Existing SCE customers who want to lower their power bills and safeguard against outages.
Existing SCE customers with grid-tied solar who get short-changed on net metering and want to safeguard against outages.
People with a standalone off-grid solar system.
For existing SCE customers, our Resiliency Packages turn the tables by using off-grid solar as the primary power source to cover day-to-day usage. Meanwhile, Edison serves as “backup” for the occasional power draw that exceeds the solar system’s capacity or during the once-in-a-blue-moon many-gray-days-in-a-row situations.
Production and storage needs depend mostly on your usage pattern. We may recommend putting high-power appliances that you can live without during an outage on SCE permanently. These may include an electric dryer, monster power tools, and a jacuzzi. We may also suggest adjusting your habits, such as heating water during the day, to reduce your battery costs.
Moreover, we assess the well pump and water storage arrangement — powerful pumps (e.g., over 1 HP) have high surge power, and could raise the cost of a system by thousands of dollars. However, if you have a gravity-fed water tank, you may leave your well pump on SCE and use the stored water during an outage, saving costs without impacting your lifestyle.
The resulting system will have a very high utilization rate, working hard day in and day out to lower your power bills and allowing you to meet most needs during an outage. While the final cost will depend on your production and storage requirements, a typical basic whole-house solution with "grid as backup" costs around $15k to $20k at the time of writing.
Meanwhile, a completely off-grid solar system needs to accommodate more diverse scenarios and provide some margins. We dimension production and storage capacity for worst-case scenarios, such as several consecutive overcast days.
We discuss usage patterns with our clients and help select energy-efficient appliances, especially if they’re building or renovating their homes. For example, we evaluate tradeoffs and preferences between electric vs. propane water heaters, dryers, and stoves.
We may also recommend using a generator (which you should have as a backup anyway) for the occasional monster power tools, so you don’t have to pay for capacity you rarely need.
For most clients, a completely off-grid system costs around $20k to $25k at the time of writing. We can also structure a phased approach — our modular and expandable design allows clients to grow their systems over time, balancing budget and requirements.
The third scenario is converting a grid-tied system to an off-grid setup. The design approach is similar to dimensioning a Resiliency Package, since the client can use Edison as backup to power occasional heavy loads.
Moreover, we consider household dynamics. For example, a single- or two-person household often means it’s unlikely that multiple appliances are turned on simultaneously (e.g., one person washes the car, another turns on the kettle, and a third person runs the a/c). However, that’s not the case in a household with multiple buildings and members, and we’ll implement sufficient inverter capacity to accommodate the potential surge power and load.
There are no hard-and-fast rules for dimensioning a system that balances hard requirements (e.g., an existing well pump), lifestyle preferences (e.g., is a jacuzzi a must, no matter what?), and budget. Through our personalized approach, we ask questions to identify the best solution for you. The result? Happy clients who get the capacity they want without paying for things they don’t need.
Ready to design an off-grid solar solution that starts with your preference and requirements? Let’s talk.
